Greater Bosnia (Bosnian : Velika Bosna) is an irredentist concept seeking the enlargement of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is more popular among ethnic Bosniaks, as Bosnian Croats more commonly support the creation of a separate Croat entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina or integration into Croatia while Bosnian Serbs prefer to side with a possible secession of Republika Srpska or its merger with Serbia. Bosniak irredentism often endorses the annexation of the region of Sandžak, where a Bosniak community lives. [1]
Džafer Kulenović, leader of the Yugoslav Muslim Organization, supported the creation of a Greater Bosnia including Sandžak sponsored by the Independent State of Croatia during World War II. [2]
Franjo Tuđman, the first president of Croatia, accused Alija Izetbegović, the first chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, of conspiring to create a Greater Bosnia along with Turkey and to create an Islamic fundamentalist state with the help of 500,000 ethnic Turks that were to come to Bosnia and which would expand its influence to Sandžak and Kosovo. Tuđman was opposed to maintaining Bosnia's borders at the time and advocated for a partition of the country along ethnic lines. [3]
Franjo Tuđman, also written as Franjo Tudjman, was a Croatian politician and historian. Following the country's independence from Yugoslavia, he became the first president of Croatia and served as president from 1990 until his death in 1999. He was the ninth and last President of the Presidency of SR Croatia from May to July 1990.
Alija Izetbegović was a Bosnian politician, lawyer, Islamic philosopher and author, who in 1992 became the first president of the Presidency of the newly independent Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Sandžak, also known as Sanjak or as Raška by Serbs, is a historical geo-political region located in the southwestern part of Serbia and the eastern part of Montenegro. The name Sandžak derives from the Sanjak of Novi Pazar, a former Ottoman administrative district founded in 1865.
Greater Croatia is a term applied to certain currents within Croatian nationalism. In one sense, it refers to the territorial scope of the Croatian people, emphasising the ethnicity of those Croats living outside Croatia. In the political sense, though, the term refers to an irredentist belief in the equivalence between the territorial scope of the Croatian people and that of the Croatian state.
Croatian nationalism is nationalism that asserts the nationality of Croats and promotes the cultural unity of Croats.
Mate Boban was a Bosnian Croat politician and one of the founders of the Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia, an unrecognized entity within Bosnia and Herzegovina. He was the 1st President of Herzeg-Bosnia from 1991 until 1994.
Blaž Nikola Kraljević was a Bosnian Croat paramilitary leader who commanded the Croatian Defence Forces (HOS) during the Bosnian War. An immigrant to Australia, Kraljević joined the Croatian Revolutionary Brotherhood (HRB) upon his arrival there in 1967. During his return to Yugoslavia in January 1992 he was appointed by Dobroslav Paraga, leader of the Croatian Party of Rights (HSP), as leader of the HOS in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was a state in Southeastern Europe, existing from 1992 to 1995. It is the direct legal predecessor to the modern-day state of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia was an unrecognized geopolitical entity and quasi-state in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was proclaimed on 18 November 1991 under the name Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia as a "political, cultural, economic and territorial whole" in the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and abolished on 14 August 1996.
Bosniaks are a South Slavic ethnic group, native to Bosnia and Herzegovina and the region of Sandžak. The term Bosniaks was re-instated in 1993 after decades of suppression in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The Bosniak Assembly adopted the ethnonym to replace "Bosnian Muslims." Scholars believe that the move was partly motivated by a desire to distinguish the Bosniaks from the fabricated and imposed term Muslim to describe their nationality in the former Yugoslavia. These scholars contend that the Bosniaks are distinguishable from comparable groups due to a collective identity based on a shared environment, cultural practices and experiences.
Bosniaks are the third largest ethnic group in Serbia after Serbs and Hungarians numbering 153,801 or 2.31% of the population according to the 2022 census. They are concentrated in south-western Serbia, and their cultural centre is Novi Pazar.
The Croat–Bosniak War was a conflict between the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia, supported by Croatia, that lasted from 18 October 1992 to 23 February 1994. It is often referred to as a "war within a war" because it was part of the larger Bosnian War. In the beginning, the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Croatian Defence Council fought together in an alliance against the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS). By the end of 1992, however, tensions between Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats increased. The first armed incidents between them occurred in October 1992 in central Bosnia. The military alliance continued until early 1993, when it mostly fell apart and the two former allies engaged in open conflict.
The Graz agreement was a proposed agreement made between the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić and the Bosnian Croat leader Mate Boban on 6 May 1992 in the city of Graz, Austria. The agreement publicly declared the territorial division between Republika Srpska and the Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia and called for an end of conflicts between Serbs and Croats. The largest group in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Bosniaks, did not take part in the agreement and were purposefully not invited to the negotiations.
On 25 March 1991, the presidents of the Yugoslav federal states SR Croatia and SR Serbia, Franjo Tuđman and Slobodan Milošević, met at the Karađorđevo hunting ground in northwest Serbia. The publicized topic of their discussion was the ongoing Yugoslav crisis. Three days later all the presidents of the six Yugoslav republics met in Split. Although news of the meeting taking place was widely publicized in the Yugoslav media at the time, the meeting was overshadowed by the crisis in progress, that would lead to the breakup of Yugoslavia.
Bosniak nationalism or Bosniakdom is the nationalism that asserts the nationality of Bosniaks and promotes the cultural unity of the Bosniaks. It should not be confused with Bosnian nationalism, often referred to as Bosniandom, as Bosniaks are treated as a constituent people by the preamble of Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, whereas people who identify as Bosnians for nationality are not. Bosniaks were formerly called Muslims in census data but this model was last used in the 1991 census.
The siege of Mostar was fought during the Bosnian War first in 1992 and then again later in 1993 to 1994. Initially lasting between April 1992 and June 1992, it involved the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) and the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH) fighting against the Serb-dominated Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) after Bosnia and Herzegovina declared its independence from Yugoslavia. That phase ended in June 1992 after the success of Operation Jackal, launched by the Croatian Army (HV) and HVO. As a result of the first siege around 90,000 residents of Mostar fled and numerous religious buildings, cultural institutions, and bridges were damaged or destroyed.
The Agreement on Friendship and Cooperation between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia was signed by Alija Izetbegović, President of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Franjo Tuđman, President of the Republic of Croatia, in Zagreb on 21 July 1992 during the Bosnian and Croatian wars for independence from Yugoslavia. It established cooperation, albeit inharmonious, between the two and served as a basis for joint defense against Serb forces. It also placed the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) under the command of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH).
The partition of Bosnia and Herzegovina was discussed and attempted during the 20th century. The issue came to prominence during the Bosnian War, which also involved Bosnia and Herzegovina's largest neighbors, Croatia and Serbia. As of 2023, the country remains one state while internal political divisions of Bosnia and Herzegovina based on the 1995 Dayton Agreement remain in place.
The Bosniak National Council is a representative body of the Bosniak national minority in Serbia. It was founded as the Muslim National Council of Sandžak (MNVS) on 11 May 1991. Its first president and founder is Sulejman Ugljanin. Until 2003, the Bosniak National Council was called the Bosniak National Council of Sandžak (BNVS), after which it took its current name.
Bosniakisation designates the process of ethnic and cultural assimilation of non-Bosniak individuals or groups into the Bosniak ethnocultural corpus. Historically, bosniakisation was directed mainly towards some other South Slavic groups, like ethnic Muslims (Muslimani) in former Yugoslavia. Since Bosniaks are Sunni Muslims, Bosniakisation was also manifested towards some distinctive ethnoreligious minorities within Serbian and Croatian national corpus, mainly towards Serbian Muslims and Croatian Muslims.